Superfund Bill Would Promote Lawsuits, Delay Cleanups

Superfund reauthorization legislation scheduled to be voted on today by the House Transportation and Public Works Committee undercuts Superfund’s popular “polluter pays” system and the federal safety net for nonfederal cleanups, according to the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). The bill is a revised version of H.R. 1300, initially introduced by Subcommittee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) and others earlier this year.

“The time for comprehensive Superfund reauthorization has come and gone,” said Karen Florini, an EDF senior attorney. “What’s needed now is narrow, targeted legislation that focuses on areas that all stakeholders ? environmentalists, businesses, the Administration, and other governmental entities ? agree warrant attention, namely brownfields, perhaps along with carefully tailored provisions to protect small parties from abuses of the Superfund liability system.”

“Unfortunately, the 178-page revised bill goes much further. It has a number of troubling provisions that will result in more lawsuits,” said Florini. “It changes key liability provisions, which will prompt new lawsuits about issues that have been resolved through 20 years of laborious litigation since Superfund’s initial enactment. It allows many parties who own Superfund sites to avoid any share in the cost of cleaning their own property, even if they bought the property with knowledge of the contamination. The bill also contains a number of other new liability loopholes, some of which are highly vulnerable to abuse while others set disturbing precedents.”

“In addition, H.R. 1300 blocks the federal government ? as well as citizens and local governments ? from using Superfund authorities where a site that was supposedly cleaned up under a state program still may present an imminent and substantial endangerment,” said Florini. “This is a completely inappropriate erosion of the federal safety net, one that allows federalism to trump public health. If a site still poses this kind of risk even after the cleanup is supposedly done, Superfund should be able to respond.”

“The bill also dramatically ramps down funding for cleanups after 2003, even though it’s far too early to determine how much funding needs will decline over time ? especially because non-permanent remedies will have to be revisited,” said Florini.

“The bill suffers from several sins of omission as well,” said Florini. “Perhaps most conspicuously, it doesn’t reinstate the polluter-pays taxes, even though it shifts significant costs from polluters to the Superfund program. In addition, the bill does little to enhance public Right to Know, and nothing to strengthen environmental justice considerations in the cleanup program. Nor does it assure that cleanups will protect children or other vulnerable populations.”